Italian households are carrying an average of 6,657 euros in debt each, excluding mortgages, according to an analysis by Cgia reported by Sky TG24. The study, published on Saturday, puts the country's total consumer credit at close to 178 billion euros.
Sky TG24 reports that the figure marks a steady rise in household borrowing. Over a nine-year period, consumer credit in Italy grew by 62 percent, according to ANSA's coverage of the same Cgia findings. That growth has occurred even as wages have remained largely stagnant, a point raised in Adnkronos's reporting on the analysis.
The debt total covers loans taken out for consumption rather than home purchases, meaning the 6,657-euro average sits on top of any mortgage obligations a family may hold. Milano Finanza and Tgcom24 both reported the same per-household figure, describing debt levels as rising without including mortgages in the calculation.
The Cgia research offers a snapshot of how Italian families are financing day-to-day life and larger purchases through credit. With consumer credit expanding sharply over less than a decade, the analysis points to borrowing as an increasingly common feature of household budgets.
What to watch next is whether the pace of consumer credit growth continues, and whether wage trends shift in a way that eases the reliance on borrowed money that the Cgia data highlights.